The Poole Harbour Commission are currently progressing with their ‘South Quay’ development which will serve to improve the Port’s capacity and capability to deal with a range of shipping and marine activities. Jenkins Marine commenced Preliminary works this October at the Port of Poole Marina to clear the site in advance of the dredging works which are due to complete by Christmas.

This significant initial contract included:

Extraction of about 20 tubular piles within the Port of Poole Marina, to remove one main walkway and associated finger pontoons, and the outer breakwater pontoons.

Driving about 7 tubular piles to reinstall the outer breakwater following it's relocation. The Tubular piles varied between 339mm and 610mm outside diameter, and were up to 20m long. Piling operations were undertaken using a 50t Crawler crane on board a piling barge, and a hydraulic vibratory piling hammer.

All of the marina pontoons that were to be relocated or removed were re-positioned as required, or moved to be lifted out of the water for storage ashore.

Two fixed breakwaters were removed which involved extraction of sheet piles, tubes, and supporting steels, including segregation of materials for recycling/disposal/storage.

A pedestrian walkway was removed, and lifted ashore for cutting up and recycling/disposal.

A 10m diameter ship’s turning/mooring dolphin structure (formerly used for the Roll on Roll off ferry number 1 berth) was demolished and removed, which involved breaking out, excavation and disposal of a 1m thick concrete slab using a barge mounted excavator and skips. Extraction of the central mooring bollard tubular pile and excavation of the fill material was also required. The straight web sheet piles which made up the perimeter structural wall were so corroded that they had to be cut down to just above sea level where they were thick enough not the break off when we attempted pile extraction using the vibro hammer.

For the majority of the works, the 600t capacity spud barge ‘JML 36’ was used as a working platform for the excavator/crawler crane. This was moved about by the 15t bollard pull tug ‘Handfast’, or multirole vessel ‘STOUR’. Other smaller vessels, including the versatile multi-role vessel Buffalo, were used as required to assist with general operations including the transfer of waste skips. The 18m x 6m pontoon barge ‘JML 60’ was used for storing the tubular piles as they were extracted, which saved time on re-positioning the piling barge.

A spokesman for Poole Harbour Commissioner's said:

"PHC are excited to be progressing with the South Quay development with vessels already booked in to operate from the new deep water berth from Autumn 2017."